I agree with every sentence Joe Hennes has written here, with the possible exception of the last one.
However, I also think that it is important to recognize that evil is not confined to national government, nor to the world of politics and government at large. For all its vile, despotic tendencies, the Trump administration and its obsequious enablers in Congress do not yet have the monopoly on greed, corruption, and wanton acts of injustice in this country.
“Hamilton had now written 60,000 words in just a couple of months. For perspective, the book you are holding clocks in at 58,000 words and, I’m embarrassed to say, took much longer.”
–Jeff Wilser, “Seek the Core Principles,” Alexander Hamilton’s Guide to Life.
From November 1774 to February 1775, teenaged college student Alexander Hamilton wrote two political pamphlets defending the American Revolutionary cause. Specifically, he was responding to pamphlets written by British loyalist Samuel Seabury. While Wilser estimates Hamilton’s word count for the two pamphlets to be 60,000, according to my estimation, it is closer to 65,000.
I mention this because I was looking at my statistics page for this blog and found that over the course of five months, from July 31 to December 31, 2017, I wrote 66,089 words on this blog. So I’m almost keeping pace with Alexander Hamilton, in quantity if not in quality.
I was feeling quite smug about this until I did the math and realized that–depending on whether the 60,000 or 65,000 word figure is more accurate–Hamilton still outstrips me by approximately 3000 to 4000 words a month because he created his content in a shorter amount of time. Also, he was writing everything out in longhand and didn’t have the Internet to assist him in research.
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,–And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
–William Blake
I remember first reading this poem in high school and being horrified by it, because the anger and resentment that the speaker harbors not only poisons the speaker’s foe, it also poisons the speaker, to the point that the speaker is “glad” to see his (her?) foe lying dead on the ground.
I never want to be that kind of person. I decided a long time ago that I would try never to derive pleasure from another human being’s misfortune. I don’t always succeed, but I do try.
DANNY HORN: Hey, did I ever tell you about my theory that Mew’s death is a metaphor for AIDS? It’s 1986, and gay men are dying all over the place. The creators are TV puppet people from New York and LA, so obviously a lot of their friends are dying. So in this special, you get Mew — the despised, unfairly judged cat-toy — dying suddenly. Rugby realizes how precious Mew is… but he figures it out too late. […] Then the fantasy is that the dead loved one can be resurrected and vindicated, just through the power of love and Christmas. You can see how this was an appealing fantasy for artsy people in 1986.
KYNAN BARKER: Did I ever tell you MY theory that sometimes a kids’ TV special is just a kids’ TV special?–ToughPigs.com, “My Week with Another Christmas – Day Two: Doll Be Home for Christmas,” December 24, 2003.
Today is Epiphany, so I wanted to do not only a Christmas-themed article but one with some real substance to it, and this 14-year-old conversation about The Christmas Toy is a good jumping-off point for a discussion of allegory versus applicability.
An allegory is a detailed, in-depth metaphor that represents a situation or event in the real world. Authors who write allegory are usually not very subtle about the point they’re trying to get across. For example, I would consider A Christmas Carol to be an allegory: There’s not much to speculate about what the three spirits represent; it’s right there in their names.
On the other hand, a work has applicability if it can support multiple interpretations, regardless of what the author’s intention may have been. As J.R.R. Tolkien explained it, “I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other resides in the purposed domination of the author.” Tolkien ran up against this attitude often when Lord of the Rings fans would ask him questions about the allegorical meaning of the novels, to which he would respond that there was none, but that it was applicable to many real-life situations or events.
Today I want to talk about It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, or “VMX” for short.
Now, VMX is not my favorite Muppet thing ever, not by a long shot. But I would forgive anybody just about anything for the sake of “Everyone Matters,” a beautiful song from the special:
I love this song, partially because it gives such good Sad-Gonzo. Sad-Gonzo is my favorite Gonzo. As far as I’m concerned, the worst thing that ever happened to Gonzo’s character is when his eyelids became mobile and he could change expressions.
It’s time we leave our doubt behind and find what life’s about:
Kermit believes in Santa Claus. I believe in Steve Whitmire.
It may not be readily apparent, but as this Christmas-to-Epiphany season wears on, I can sort of feel myself becoming snarkier and more sarcastic.
But if there were ever a sure-fire cure for feeling grumpy and cynical, it would be Robin the Frog singing “It’s in Every One of Us”:
I think this was the second time in my young life that I got to see Fraggles on TV, but the first time that I got to do repeat viewings of Fraggles on TV until I was able to purchase the DVD set as an adult.
Happy New Year! As I look back on 2017, it seems to me that: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
Notwithstanding numerous references, however, The Muppets have yet to do an adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities, but we can acknowledge Mr. Dickens with another scene from Muppet Christmas Carol:
I would be remiss to post this video and not say a “thank you” or two…
I was doing some YouTube research today and discovered something that’s too delightful not to share:
via A “Mash” Made in Heaven: queen_of_kithia
You all may know about this already, but I’m learning how to use the “Press This” feature and decided it would be a good opportunity to do my part to get the word out:
via Reddit “Ask Me Anything” with Frank Oz on January 4th at 6 p.m. Eastern Time: queen_of_kithia
Though my mind be filled with questions, in my heart I understand…
“Patience, my brothers
And patience, my sons.
In that sweet and final hour,
Truth and justice will be done.”
Generally speaking, I try to be an open-minded, nonjudgmental kind of person. Nevertheless, I do have my pet peeves, and one of them is nonhuman depictions of the Nativity.
So by all rights, I should be really, REALLY offended by this sketch…and yet, I am not. Why not? Am I a hypocrite in addition to being a heretic?
Well…possibly. But in this case, I think it’s the metafictional aspect that makes all the difference. This is a story about a bunch of characters putting on a Nativity pageant. Bert may be playing the role of Joseph, but the point of the sketch is not to persuade me to willingly suspend disbelief and convince myself that he is Joseph and not Bert. The humor in the sketch stems from the fact that he is still unmistakably, undeniably Bert even while trying to play the role of Joseph while valiantly fighting off an attack of hayfever.
As much as I love this episode of Fraggle Rock–and I do–I nevertheless have some questions about it:
Why did Gobo assume that the “Great Bell” was something that he’d be able to carry back home? Doesn’t “Great Bell” kind of imply something that’s large and heavy?
When Gobo and Wembley saw that the cave was bell-shaped on the map, why did it never occur to them that perhaps the cave is the Great Bell rather than simply containing the Great Bell? That’s immediately where my mind went.
Whatever happened to the Weebabeast, anyway? They introduce this whole implied mythos about the Weebabeast, and then we never hear about it again. I feel cheated.
Why does everyone think that Cantus is so cryptic? He makes perfect sense to me.
I’ve posted this song before, so this time I was going to go with Alice Otter’s original “Our World,” but this version is just better, which I guess was the point all along.
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